Death and Dying – Part 2

In last month’s message I sought to place recent events of unexpected death in the context of Zen Buddhism, or at least my poor understanding of it, focusing primarily on the premature death of a beloved child, the worst-case scenario for parents. I closed the comment with a quote from a funeral for a young girl given by Matsuoka-roshi:

When a flower comes into bloom in the spring, we know than it will fade someday. For this reason, we say that life and death are one. The flower that opens its petals to the sunshine of the day closes them with the darkness of the night. And yet, night and day are actually one. They blend into one another at dawn and at dusk. Everyone has his dawn at his birth, and each also has his dusk at his death. Let us think of life and death as a dawn and dusk. At dusk, we are sorry to see the day fade away, but we should think of the beauty of the day, not the darkness of the approaching night. When the petals of a flower close at dusk, we should think of the beauty of the blossom that is now taking its rest.

I suggested that we regard the deaths that we encounter in this manner, especially our own, whether as the result of action taken by others (the Huntsville murders), actions taken by oneself, or the workings of nature. Much more easily said than done, of course.

I deferred until this month following on the issue of death in the Huntsville case, to do it justice, and said that I will explore the underlying undercurrent of neurosis, in the context of a death-aversive culture. I will also try to draw some connection between the fear of death and the lust for life — the first posited as a motivation that drives, and is masked by, other desires — sometimes driving us to distraction, addiction, and other self-inflicted suffering, including suicidal and homicidal death. As I said last month, Zen does not offer any easy answers to this.

In many cases of homicide, we can look to disparities in social, economic and educational attributes of the perpetrator to find causes and conditions that help understand, or at least rationalize, the commission of the crime. In many cases, perpetrators turn out to be victims themselves, and we can have some sympathy for the circumstances that drove them to such an act. In the case of the shootings in Huntsville, the alleged shooter and her victims were essentially identical in this way, however. So, we turn to psychology and the many possibilities of mental derangement, neurosis or psychosis to, once again, attempt to rationalize the behavior. Notwithstanding that the hard-noses amongst the commenting class usually urge a more black-and-white, no-nonsense approach of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

In general, Zen practitioners would probably come down somewhere in-between, leaning toward incarceration as necessary to protecting the community, rather than as a punishment for the perpetrator. This position would then lobby against imposition of the death penalty as unnecessary, either to prevent the perpetrator from inflicting further damage — the prison walls should suffice — or to offer “justice” to the victims’ family.

Justice in Buddhism comes from the dynamic of Karma, playing out over time, even over many lifetimes, not from the judgment of fallible human beings, no matter how highly placed in the court system, up to and including the Supremes. In Zen, everyone is ultimately redeemable (though not in the form of a soul), but rehabilitation is not necessarily doable in one lifetime.

It is crucial to remember that none of the teachings of Buddhism are to be used to judge anyone other than oneself. That is, karma cannot be used as reason for indifference, pity or disdain. The only karma that is pertinent to one’s worldview is one’s own. It is a way of understanding and accepting that which cannot be understood or accepted.

The Buddhist teaching that applies most directly to others is that of compassion, which literally means “suffer with.” It does not mean condone, forgive, understand, have sympathy for, or any of the other dozens of sentimental connotations it is given in the West. We speak of “practicing” compassion, which indicates that it is something we think we have a choice about, to either suffer with something or somebody or not, depending on our preference case-by-case. But this is a misconception; we actually have no choice — we suffer with others regardless of our personal preference, often in ways that are not obvious. For example, that some resort to stealing means that others must lock their doors. Both are forms of suffering.

In that it is built-in, compassion itself is neutral. But its poorly thought-out, intentional application can have unintended consequences that are not. Neutral, that is. If we lean toward empathy for victims, we err in punishing criminals. If we have too much sympathy for the criminal, what does that say about our compassion for the victims? In today’s climate, we suffer an ever-burgeoning prison system, with calamitous results for state budgets, for one result. This is a result of our way of practicing compassion for victims and their criminals, exacerbated by the ubiquitous profit- and politics-driven mentality. There are no easy answers here, and Zen does not pretend to offer any. It is a huge mess, a koan of epic proportions.

From Zen’s perspective, all public societal norms and mores are necessarily found lacking, in that they are necessarily concepts based upon a limited grasp of the reality, and primarily intended to re-establish so-called “normalcy” following a horrendous event. This applies to natural disasters as well as the man-made variety. The objective of agreed philosophy and psychology in the context of such extreme aberrations, and amplified by media coverage, is not to expose and resolve the root causes with any finality, but to maintain and sustain the status quo, which is in the enlightened self-interest of the survivors. Here, “enlightenment” is not Buddhist enlightenment.

The only level upon which these difficult and divisive issues can be truly resolved is the personal. If, like Shakespeare (or Thich Nhat Hahn), one can fully assimilate the suffering of both the victim and the perpetrator simultaneously, with all the cognitive and logical dissonance that this implies, perhaps can one begin to apprehend the reality. Then it becomes apparent that simplistic answers are just that, simplistic; and that true resolution is not in the hands of society. We can only do our best, and trust that the great scales of karmic justice are in play, no matter our poor and biased perception.

I once came across a quote from a chief of a native American tribe (that I cannot attribute), who said that those indigenous people killed in the onslaught of the European invasion in conquering the West would be reborn as their children. The second generation of white men. Those of us who have children can understand how this could amount to the perfect karmic retribution, as the relationship to own children is often the source of our greatest grief.

But it also says that, as parents, the very perpetrators of genocide will then have the opportunity to nurture and protect those that they murdered and maimed, in their next birth. There is some poetic justice there, however far-fetched. When we regard this idea as primitive, or with disdain, however, we may only be showing our own ignorant reliance upon unexamined cultural beliefs and conventional wisdom. Zen encourages us to eschew these prejudices, and one way to do so is to embrace contrary ideas. Another, the best way, is to embrace zazen.

In writing about the sinking of the Titanic, Sokei-an, who founded what later became the First Zen Institute of America in 1930 in New York City, stated (paraphrasing) that all of the people who died in the disaster were at least 50% responsible for their own deaths. This caused a big stink, as the predictable breast-beating and witch-hunting reactions to high society losing the cream of their crop was in full-throated roar at the time. He later explained that since (according to Buddhism) we are each and all responsible for our own birth — which results from desire or thirst (Skt. Tanha) — we must then be at least partially responsible for our own death, no matter how it transpires. Even being murdered by another does not absolve us of this responsibility. Of course, this does not absolve the perpetrator, either.

More difficult, premature death of any kind, even a crib death, is not an “accident” in this framework. Even a newborn is alive owing to the innate desire for existence, so its death is a result of that same desire.

Life is the leading cause of death, as the seemingly silly, reductionist saying goes. But it is true, especially in the context of the Buddhist teaching that desire — primordial, innocent and ignorant desire — is driving existence itself, including, especially, life. It is human arrogance that arrogates to its poor wisdom the ability to understand this force and its manifestations, to judge what is right and wrong, good or evil, fair or unjust.

Sri Ramakrishna, saint of the Vedanta tradition who lived in Calcutta in the mid-1800s, described an animated vision of Mother Kali, goddess of creation and destruction, arising from the river Ganges as a beautiful young maiden, pregnant, giving birth to her child, then changing into a monstrous demeanor, devouring the infant, and returning to the river. This was his seeing into the nature of existence (J. Kensho), a direct knowing that that which brings us into existence is also that which finally devours us. It is no respecter of persons.

This is where Buddhism transcends human nature, in the sense of sentimentality based on a human-centric view of existence. However, existence is not conceivable without humanity, either, as some would propose — that humanity is some sort of accident. It is just as absurd to reduce the universe to a machine as it is to trivialize it to a pedestal for humanity. We find our place right at the center of things in Buddhism, where the rubber hits the road, to pedestrianize it as much as humanly possible.

The Middle Way is the razor’s edge. We can no more escape suffering — change — than we can fully understand it. Yet the latter is what Buddhism challenges us to do. Most of our attempts at coping with grief and tragedy, chaos and crime, are aimed at avoiding or at least mitigating our own suffering. This does not mean that anyone, including Shakyamuni Buddha, is ever free from this kind of human suffering.

The deaths in the Huntsville case, are clearly a result of neurosis, if not psychosis, but must also be seen in the context of a death-aversive culture. Death is a bit like sex in the West, perhaps in other cultures as well — their treatment in media exuding a different but undeniably similarly salacious aspect. Like rubbernecking at a multiple collision expressway incident, death and its imminence holds a fascination, though we show great aversion to its presence, attempting to avoid personally confronting it if at all possible. Voyeurism is not realism. The flip side of this aversion is illustrated by the typical funeral ceremony, all nicely packaged in barriers — flowers, expensive caskets and religious services — clearly to no avail, certainly not to the benefit of the deceased.

The lust for life, with its sexual component, cannot be meaningfully separated from the fear of death. Overcoming the fear of and fascination with death may indeed be tantamount to losing this thirst for life. A suicide is often, apparently, a manifestation of this kind of estrangement. The suicide would dearly love to live, but it is simply too painful. Death seems to be an escape, the only escape, from unbearable suffering. According to Buddhism this is a big mistake. Suicide simply leads to rebirth. In the case of murder, the result is rebirth. We want to live, but on our own terms. It is difficult to accept the terms offered by nature, if you are human.

It is odd that we do not regard birth with the same fear and trepidation that we reserve for death. Or that we do not welcome death just as we welcome birth. How different could they be? Which is the more traumatic event? Again, this is clearer in relation to oneself than to others.

The fear of death is then seen as a mistake, based upon a preference that has no basis. We have no way of comparing death to birth or vice-versa, and so cannot come to a conclusion that one is welcome and the other is not. Indeed, for all we know they are the same event. The birth, or rebirth, may be simultaneous with the death. How could we know? Who would remember?

Most philosophizing and myth- and belief-generating around this subject, and the resultant social outputs witnessed in the cultural treatment of death, mourning, grieving, et cetera, are designed for the living, not for the dead, when in fact the latter is the focus of the event. Life is for the living, as we say, so we want to get back to normal as soon as possible, and decently so, without denigrating the life and importance of the passing of the deceased. We do not speak ill of the dead, and we do not want to appear to be able to be happy without them. So death always raises this issue, What is happiness? Can we be happy in a world in which we do not control life and death? Is death ever as happy an event as is birth?

Fear of death is based upon the fact that it is unknown, in fact cannot be known. However, Zen refutes this notion, with its teaching of “dying on the cushion.” Zen is experiential, so this cannot be fobbed off as some sort of psychological idea, dying to the small self, being reborn as a new person, et cetera. What the ancients point to must be the same, experientially, as actual death. Zen holds this to be possible, even desirable. Not morbid. It is testified to by the number of Ancestors who, recognizing the onset of death, sat down in zazen and died.

Fear of death, avoided until the final unavoidable confrontation, is one source of hell. It can also be posited as the underlying motivation that drives, and is masked by, all other desires — for power, love, wealth, security, safety — sometimes driving us to distraction, addiction, and other self-inflicted suffering, including suicidal and homicidal death.

It may be that serial murderers eventually overcome their own fear of death, in the sense that they are no longer aware of it, numbed by the reaction of their own consciousness to the brutality of their own actions. Somewhere there may be a turning point, as attested to in cases of PTSD and other violent damage done to the self through harm to others. It may be that at the turning point, it is like a fork in the road. One can go one way or another, yielding a saint or insanity.

The person who committed the murders in Huntsville, then, was already dead, in a tragic sense, trapped in a kind of living hell. To be so defensive of the self that it is necessary to turn on others who only threaten financial comfort or status is revealing of another, deeper threat that has nothing to do with the actual circumstance she encountered, when refused tenure. There is no tenure in life, only a temporary surcease, the occasional cave in which to weather the immediate storm. This way of living, through daily evasive maneuvering, is postponing the inevitable, and it is not surprising that she would lash out at a perceived threat to her fantasy of reality.

As great as the suffering of the victims and the families, the deeper trauma is that exhibited by the perpetrator. If we wonder what drove her to this extreme, we are being disingenuous, or perhaps only willfully ignorant, of our own dire circumstance. In Zen, the complacency, the insidious clinging of the mind that needs to keep a distance from reality, to insist upon normalcy, safety, security status, prestige — the elevation and reification of the self — is the original killer.

My father used to repeat an expression frequently, “That just kills my soul.” Something that takes the joy out of life. But in Zen “Every day is a happy day…” as Matsuoka-roshi would say; and, I submit, “…regardless.” Can we find happiness that is regardless of circumstance? If so, would we ever kill to defend this so-called self? Killing in defense of others may be understandable, even commendable. But to lash out like a cornered rat, when we cannot find said rat upon close examination, is surely the height, or depth, of absurdity. Better to die on the cushion first, then affirm life until death do us part, if only temporarily.

About Taiun Michael Elliston

Zenkai Taiun Michael Elliston (b. March 11, 1941) is a Soto Zen priest in the lineages of Soyu Matsuoka, Kosho Uchiyama, and Shunryu Suzuki. A practitioner of Zen Buddhism since 1966, Elliston founded the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in 1977 where he currently presides as guiding teacher. While the Matsuoka lineage has been scrutinized in the past due to various circumstances, in 2007 Elliston received Dharma transmission in two other Soto lineages via Shohaku Okumura and informally through Seirin Barbara Kohn. As a consequence, this has allowed Taiun Michael to establish the Silent Thunder Order and invite other Matsuoka Dharma heirs to come to the Atlanta Zen Center for an ango and potentially a shiho ceremony, thus giving them transmission in a formally recognized Soto lineage.

At Sweeping Zen we value comments from the community. Please help us uphold a high standard of integrity in these conversations. Before posting, please take a moment to imagine that the person you are addressing is there in front of you and respond from that place. Try and be respectful and considerate of others.

Please strive to not belittle others in the conversation. If necessary, take the time to disassemble their ideas without taking the easy road of personal insults. Personal insults only serve to undermine our own arguments and lower the level of discourse.

About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

Sweeping Zen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.